


unrequited

by blondeslytherin



Series: unforgettable [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, First Kiss, Fluff, Happy Ending, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Lance Almost Dies a Second Time, Lance talks about dying, Lance's POV, M/M, Major Character Injury, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Some Humor, They're both hopelessly in love, it's not that major tbh, lance is in love with keith, snow planet, stuck on a snow planet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-08 19:23:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15936707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blondeslytherin/pseuds/blondeslytherin
Summary: They’re finally on the journey home. Things don’t go smoothly.After Lance hears something he shouldn’t have, Lance and Keith are thrown together on a snow planet, where the trees and the endless sky are their only companions, as Lance fights the one-sided love he holds. But the planet has wicked plans for them, something stalks in the darkness, and Lance learns that sometimes, things aren’t what they seem.In which Lance’s death is finally addressed, pining boys are an oblivious mess, and near death situations are the perfect time to reveal your love for someone.





	1. tree bark is only liked by cows

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how or why but I managed to write something only from one POV and canon-compliant, rather than AU and too many POV switches. It's a little strange for me too. This is set in the middle of season 7 (which is when I had the idea for it). Anyways, I really hope you enjoy it!! I'll try to update weekly, but let's see what my school schedule allows for. Tags will be updated as chapters are posted.
> 
> Comments and Kudos make my whole day, much love to you all for reading <3
> 
> Beta read by the lovely 'Softe_Gays' (go check out their work, it's amazing)

Lance hummed under his breath as he walked along the beaten path, a song that his Mama always sang whenever she was frustrated by something but refused to yell or vent. It was something Lance had unconsciously picked up, the little bits of home coming out in bittersweet habits. He had been gone so long that he only remembered the tune to the chorus, and try as he might, the deep recess of his mind yielded nothing more.

His failing memory, however, was not what he was currently frustrated with. The trek home was taking much longer than anyone had anticipated, and the hospitable planets were few and far between. Currently, they were squatting on one that had a landscape resembling a forest, so it wasn’t too bad, but they were still phoebes away from Earth. Every time they came up on a planet that looked like Earth, his heart would speed up, and each crushing disappointment hurt more than the last time.

Their encampment came back into view, dusk making the lions seem larger than they really were. Not that they were small to begin with, but the shadows cast uneven planes across the metal giants, giving them a fierce look.

A fire was already blazing in the center of their lion circle, and Lance spotted several heads already clustered. He had gone out to refill his water husk and try to clear his head, and the rest of the team had already gone ahead and started the evening ritual. Lance coughed quietly into his hand, alerting them to his presence and trying to pretend like it didn’t hurt that they had begun without him.

Allura spotted him first, raising a hand in greeting. A few other heads turned as he slipped between the legs of the green lion, slowing down as he approached his teammates. Dark circles were deeply etched into most faces, and Lance knew he sported some of his own. This trip had taken a toll on them all, but somehow, the positive spirit still shone through at times.

Someone had dragged logs around the fire (more than likely Allura and Krolia), and there was an open one left for him. The heat from the fire soaked through his paladin armor, warming him. It wasn’t a particularly cold planet, but the night time was chilly.

Keith and Hunk were still out, presumably gathering food or water or some other thing. They were spending more and more time together, and Lance felt a stir of jealousy in the pit of his stomach.

As if his thoughts had summoned them to him, Keith whistled, indicating his arrival with Hunk. Coming back into view, Lance felt something else stir in his gut.

Keith’s hair was longer than ever, and he now sported a scar along the right half of his jaw, tracing his cheekbone up and ending just below his eye. It only served to soften him, to make him more human. _To make him more attractive._ Lance wrinkled his nose as the last thought entered his mind.

Even after all the time they had spent apart, this nuisance of a crush hadn’t gone away.

It had taken him some time to realize that yes, this was in fact a crush on Keith. Hunk had teased him mercilessly over it, but in all honesty, Lance just wanted it to go away. He didn’t want to feel like this for his teammate, but, well, you don’t pick who you love. So far, Hunk was the only one that knew, and the amount of time that Keith and Hunk spent together didn’t only ignite jealously, it sparked anxiety. His crush on Keith would go away soon enough, but for now, he just had to suffer in silence.

Keith gave him a small glance as he took his place on his own designated log, causing Lance’s stomach to flipflop. His helmet was gone, long hair spilling down his back, tied together with a loose string they had found at some point.

Soon, night had fallen completely, and the group migrated closer to the warmth of the fire. Stories were passed around, mostly by Coran, recounting his days as a Space Pirate of Fashion, and Lance tried his best to follow along to the nonsensical story.

As hard as he tried, though, his eyes continued to wander over toward the black paladin. Almost as soon as Lance had looked over, Keith looked up, and their eyes met. A small smile was offered, and Keith was the first to look away, the fire casting soft shades of pink along the planes of his face. Lance felt heat creeping up his own neck, but it wasn’t from the fire.

This annoying crush would go away soon enough. Right?

It wasn’t like Keith had shown any interest in him. The first time they had seen each other, after three months for Lance and two years for Keith, and Keith had blown him off. Things had felt stilted between them, and it was causing a small rift in their formation. The lions lacked the energy needed to fully form Voltron, but when they ran their drills, they no longer blended as seamlessly as they once had.

The others had noticed as well, but were too polite to comment on it. At least, Lance hoped. He didn’t want to feel like he was the one dragging the team down, but some days, it was all he could focus on. Lance had stopped humming some time ago, but the more he glanced at Keith, the harder he hummed. More of the song had come back to him now, fueled by his willingness to ignore the ache in his heart.

Shiro got up from where he was sitting next to Pidge, and made his way over to Lance. The older man plopped down next to him, groaning as his joints popped.

“Dying has really aged you, huh?” Lance joked, but Shiro frowned at him.

“Lance…” Shiro said warningly, but Lance brushed him off with a wave of a hand.

“I’m just kidding you,” he said, clenching his jaw to avoid spilling more truths. Dying had done a number on the both of them, not that anyone seemed to care about Lance’s death.

Shiro shook his head. “That’s not what I came over to talk to you about, Lance.” There was a somber tone in their former leader’s voice, and Lance sat up straighter. “I think you and Keith need to spend some time together.” Lance opened his mouth to object—they had been spending time together—but Shiro beat him to the chase. “ _Alone_.”

Lance swallowed his objections, turning his gaze from Shiro’s face back to the fire. When he looked up again, Keith was once more watching him. The dark-haired boy’s eyes flickered away just as quickly, and Lance turned to Shiro.

Shiro was watching the exchange carefully, and his face softened when he met Lance’s stare. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he said softly, and Lance nodded. He had been waiting for this moment. “How about you two go out for food tomorrow? We need to stock up before leave again, and this is a good opportunity for you two to talk.”

He nodded, and Shiro smiled at him. Lance leaned into the older man as Shiro wrapped his good arm around Lance’s shoulders. It was warm, and comforting, and Lance relaxed into the touch. It reminded him of home, and once more, his chest constricted.

It was over far too soon, Shiro giving a final squeeze before releasing Lance and standing up. “I’m going to retire for the night.” Shiro cracked a coy grin. “As you say, dying does a number on the joints.”

Lance grinned at him as Shiro’s retreating figure slowly made its way into the Black Lion.

Maybe some time with Keith would do both of them some good.

~~~

Lance waited along the edge of the forest, nervously toeing the loose soil. Keith was supposed to have met him eight minutes ago—not that Lance was counting or anything. A dark mullet appeared at the edge of his peripheral, and he sagged in relief. He immediately straightened up again, though, as he saw the annoyed look on Keith’s face. _Uh oh_.

“Lance,” Keith said, nodding curtly to Lance. Lance frowned in response. Something was up with him. It was the same tone he used when they were first entering space, when Keith was disgruntled by the mere presence of Lance. It stung to hear.

Over the year (two? Three? Lance still wasn’t sure how space time worked) that they had been in space, the pair had become friends, allies, partners. They had gone from petty rivals, to…whatever they were at now. The distance had done a rift on their relationship, though. _I don’t have time for this, Lance._

Since Keith had been back, things had been… different.

Both of them had changed, and quite truthfully, Lance wasn’t really sure that he wanted to face it. It really, _really_ , didn’t help that Keith had come back ten times hotter than when he had left.

They stared at each other, shifting uncomfortably. Silence stretched between them, both too stubborn to be the first to break it.

Before Keith’s departure, Lance had been the taller one, standing a good half head over the dark mullet. Now, they were nearly nose to nose. Close enough in height that—

At last, Keith spoke, sending Lance’s train of thought careening off the tracks. “Looks like we’ve got dinner duty tonight.”

“Do we really have to?”

Keith pulled a face at him. “Yes, Lance, we have to. It’s for the good of the team, and you know that.”

Another thing that had changed: Keith sounded like a genuine leader now. Knowing what was best for the team, but still taking input. Making the annoying decisions gracefully.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lance grumbled, and along with his mouth, his stomach. “Suppose we better go now.” Something was digging under Keith’s skin, and it was coming out in the worst way. Lance felt his face fall as soon as Keith had his back turned. _This probably isn’t what Shiro had in mind_ , he thought miserably.

They set off, an odd but not uncomfortable distance between them. Lance could reach out and interlock their fingers if he wished, but there was no real reason to do that, now was there? _Quit lying to yourself, McClain._

_I’ll lie all I want_ , he retorted mentally, choosing to ignore the fact that he was having a conversation with himself.

Soon enough, they were at the mouth of the forest, and Kosmo blinked into existence next to Keith. Absentmindedly, he reached out and scratched behind the space-wolf’s ears, and Lance had to force himself to look away.

Hotter Keith was doing a number on his resolve.

They wandered into the purple trees, a cacophony of what could have been frogs making the forest seem alive. Bright, multicolored berries jabbed out at them at every turn, smelling and looking mouth-watering, but Hunk had learned the hard way not to eat whatever he saw first. Allura had scoured this planet before they had even landed, telling them what was safe and what wasn’t. For the most part, the berries were highly toxic to humans. Alteans, however, could dine on them as they pleased.

What they were currently looking for was tree bark, blue and soft. It reminded Lance of blue raspberry taffy, but the taste was anything but. Rubbery and bland, it was like chewing on edible pencil erasers.

He could feel a series of glances that Keith sent his way, each prickling his skin like a minor bee sting. After what Lance counted to be glance number five, he glanced down. All of his Paladin armor was put on correctly, and he hadn’t stepped in any dung, so that wasn’t the problem either. Self-consciously, he ran a hand over the top of his helmet, checking to see if any leaves had gotten stuck to it. The glances only doubled in number. Lance was used to the side-eyes that Keith gave him, but this was getting a little bit excessive.

“Okay, what is it?” Lance asked at last, exasperated.

Keith looked over, annoyed. “What?”

“You keep looking at me weirdly! Do I have bark in my teeth or something?”

Keith flushed. “Oh, what no, that’s not why—oh hey look there’s the tree.”

Kosmo teleported Keith over, and Lance broke into a little half jog to catch up to them. There in fact was the tree, and they set to work peeling off long strips of bark.

The wolf trailed around their feet, winding itself between their legs, finally coming to rest directly on top of Keith’s feet, its tail wrapping around Lance’s calves.

Keith’s attention was focused fully on the tree, and Lance was beginning to miss the side-eye glances. Thick air had settled between them, and Lance was having trouble breathing. Maybe he should just take his helmet off.

Pneumatics hissed as he unlocked it, and then popped it off his head. Warm, heavy air enveloped his skin, and he sucked in a fresh lungful of air.

Keith scowled at him. “Allura told us that the atmosphere wasn’t the best. What are you doing, Lance?” There was a boredom to his tone that Lance delved into; this, this petty annoyance he could handle. He could navigate a rivalry perfectly.

“It’s good for my pores,” he responded calmly.

Keith huffed. “Yeah, right.” Same deadpan tone. “What happens if someone comms us? Huh? What are you going to do then?”

Lance shrugged. “You have your helmet on. I’m sure we’ll be fine. Besides,” he said, lowering his voice and leaning closer, “in space, no one can hear you scream.”

Keith rolled his eyes as Lance chuckled. No, not much at all had changed between them. Keith still had no idea.

Now, it was Lance watching Keith. Noticing the way that his shoulders tightened under the Paladin armor, the way his neck arched as he looked upwards. The way that a single bead of sweat was making its way down his temple and over his cheekbone…

Lance startled to attention when something crackled nearby. Keith cocked his head, listening.

After a moment, there was just the usual sound of the not-quite-frogs, and Lance turned his attention back to the tree.

“Hey, so, I don’t think we’ve really had a chance to catch up. With all the Lotor drama and stuff happening.” Whatever had been bothering Keith in the beginning of their trek seemed to have faded, and Lance relaxed slightly.

Lance nodded, still hearing Keith’s first words to him after that chunk of time ring in his head. “Yeah, I agree. You’ve been gone so long, it just feels like, you know…” he trailed off, hoping that Keith would get the message.

Keith met Lance’s eyes, and they held eye contact for a long moment, each waiting for the other.

Finally, Lance cleared his throat. “Yeah, there’s just so much that happened when you were gone.” He laughed. “I died, for quiznack’s sake.”

Keith fell still. “You what?”

There was no time for Lance to respond before the comms crackled to life for real this time, Lance hastily tugging on his helmet to be able to hear the message.

“Paladins, report back immediately. There’s a storm incoming, and our lions aren’t strong enough to weather it through. We need to leave now.” The urgency in Allura’s voice sent them into action, each gathering up an armful of bark. Kosmo teleported Keith away, and Lance stared at the spot where they had been in dismay.

Was he going to have to make it all the way back through the forest on his own? And what about this incoming storm?

A second later, though, and Kosmo was back. If a wolf could narrow their eyes in disdain, Kosmo would take the crown. Lance wasn’t really sure why the wolf loathed him so (“Keith probably trained it to bite me!” he had joked once, only to earn a flat stare and a snapping wolf jaw in response), but it was evident in the way that the wolf stood it hated Lance. Reluctantly, it padded over next to Lance, and in a _whoosh_ , they were gone, Lance stumbling as they arrived back to the lion circle.

Already, their camp was being disassembled, and things were being put back in the lions. It was mainly packed up, and Lance shoved whatever he needed to back into the red lion. Kalternecker was the least happy of the bunch, mooing in distress as Lance tried to gently guide her into the lion. When that didn’t work, he tossed a piece of bark into the ship and she went cantering after it.

_Leave it to space cows to enjoy the bark_. He took a final glance around; everything was mainly gone. Allura was taking Romelle and Coran this time, Hunk and Krolia in the yellow lion (Krolia and Keith had been bickering over something this morning. Lance still wasn’t sure he wanted to know, if it was enough to put her in a different lion), Pidge taking Shiro. Lance had the most ‘cargo’ per say, with Kalternecker and a good majority of the food and other various things from the castle ship. There hadn’t been a lot for him to take initially, so he was stuck with the luggage.

A smoldering pile of pink sticks lay in the center of their makeshift camp ground, thunderheads rolling in the distance. He saw the tail of Kosmo disappear into the green lion, and then the jaw shut behind it.

Lance climbed into his own lion, and settled down into the seat. Kalternecker mooed from behind him, and he dug another piece of bark out of his armor pocket. His lion purred as he woke him up, and he set to work.

Allura popped up on his display screen, white hair sticking out at various angles. While the food may have been good for the Alteans, the humidity was not. “I’ve already set course for the next planet to land on. This one, luckily, has Voltron Coalition supporters on it, so we should find a nice welcome there.” She gave a small smile, and then disappeared, the display screen clicking off.

The black lion nodded to gathered pride, and then leapt up, shooting up into the sky. The rest of the lions followed, falling into formation.

They burst through the clouds and back into space, Lance settling back as soon as they broke the atmosphere. If Allura had already plugged in the new coordinates, all that would be needed from him is a warm body in a chair.

He could sit back and relax.

Or, he could not.

Lance had been fidgeting much more lately, tugging at everything and anything. He had suddenly developed a knack for organization, and every time he entered Pidge’s lion, he nearly suffered from a stroke.

Every single box, bin, and bag had already been organized and then reorganized, and his lion was by far the cleanest one.

With nothing left to sort through, Lance had settled to helping Allura figure out coordinates. Apparently, he had gotten a knack for math as well.

Back in his lion, with no risk of unsafe atmospheres, he tugged off his helmet once more, catching the single strand of white at the nape of his neck with his thumb. Even through his gloves, the texture felt different. So far, no one had noticed.

He was glad that he only gained skills when he died, rather than lose any. He was already too much of a dead weight to the team, and losing anything that gives him any sort of worth would have been…

Well, it would have been enough to send Lance into the same fate as the castle ship. _At least then he would be doing something good._

He shook his head, trying to dislodge the thoughts. The comms crackled to his right, and he frowned at them. They had been faulty as of late; Lance would have to bring it up to Pidge and Hunk. Maybe some kind of bug had gotten on the ship at one of their pit stops?

They crackled again, and suddenly, a voice came to life.

“—I have no idea what to do about it, Romelle.” Lance paused. It was Keith’s voice. Was this another one of the faulty comm issues? Keith kept speaking. “I mean, we just got him back, and after so long away, I don’t know how to reconnect with him. He’s been part of my life since the Garrison, and I’ve liked him for just about as long, but I’ve got no idea what to do. He died! And no one seems to care!”

Lance felt the air being choked out of him as Keith’s words slowly sunk in, one pointed dagger after another. It had to be Shiro that Keith was talking about. _Keith had a crush on Shiro_? A tear slipped down Lance’s cheek. Of course he did. Shiro was strong and tall, and had been with Keith through so much. He swallowed back the tightness in his throat, swiping a gloved hand across his eyes.

_Of course Keith was in love with Shiro and not him._

_Of course Lance had a massive crush on someone who would never like him back._

He cleared his throat before speaking, trying to erase any sense of heartbreak from his words. “Keith, buddy, you’ve got the wrong channel.”

Silence. And then, very softly, “oh fuck.”

The comms disconnected, and Lance sat stone still for a brief moment, before he curled into himself in the cockpit chair of his lion. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but the blatant rejection stung too much, cut too deep. Hit too many insecurities. _Well_ , he thought poignantly, _at least Keith has no idea that I like him._

Above all else though, he just felt annoyed. Mad at himself, at Keith. Frustrated with the whole damn thing. He had faced rejection aplenty—he glanced over at the blue lion—but this stung. After everything they had been through, Lance had hoped that maybe, just this once, he might stand a chance with Keith.

But once more, his heart belonged to someone else. Once more, it was unrequited.

Lance scoffed. It should have been so clear. The cold way Keith acted when he came back, his devotion to finding Shiro, the look on his face when Shiro came back to life—after the whole clone thing.

He would just avoid Keith until this whole thing blew over. At least now, with the rejection burned into his mind, it would be easier. Distance would help, and it was always easier to let go of someone once you knew how little they cared. Never mind the distance in the formation—there was no fixing it now. Not for a while, at least.

Hunk’s voice echoed around in his head, and Lance actually had to see if the big guy was pinging him. _It didn’t work the first time, it won’t work now,_ imaginary Hunk practically sang.

The cow wandered into the cockpit. “Why do boys suck?” he asked Kalternecker, who gave a small ‘moo’ in reply, before Lance was craning head back so that it rested against the headrest and he stared straight up. Small little stars were scattered across the roof of the cockpit, and Lance had liked them too much to take them down. He didn’t really think that Keith was the type for little things like this, given that they were in space and stars were literally everywhere, but it was cute.

Lance swore at himself.

The cow mooed at him, as if to reprimand his language. The comms came back to life _again_ , and quite frankly, Lance was about to take his Bayard to the whole system. _It had done enough damage today._

“Hey, Lance,” Keith’s voice said, and Lance actually reached for his Bayard, fully intent on blasting the damned thing to small, itsy-bitsy, teeny-weenie pieces. Keith gave a weird chuckle-like noise, before clearing his throat. “That uh… that comm wasn’t for you.”

“Oh really?” Lance said, words laced with the heavy sarcasm he didn’t bother to fight. “I had no idea.”

Lance could just imagine the way that Keith’s face would pull down into the disgruntled little frown that only ever came out when Lance spoke to him like this. “Lance, there’s no need to be—”

“I’ll be however I want to be,” Lance snapped, interrupting him. He hated the way that he was getting riled up, but something bitter was in his mouth and he couldn’t help the way that it coated every single word that passed through his lips. “In fact, you can be however you want to be as well. You be you, I’ll be me.”

“Lance,” Keith growled. “I don’t have time for this.”

“You apparently don’t have time for anything, not since you found your mom and rode a space whale and saved Shiro. Because suddenly, saving everyone else is what matters to you, and not the friendships or people you left behind. Why did you come back? Since, clearly, no one but Shiro means anything to you. In fact, why don’t you go and bother him?”

Lance knew that his words stung, a hollow feeling of regret replacing the sting of heartbreak he had felt moments previous. He didn’t mean to snap at Keith like that, but the words were already out there. But he was _mad_ , he was so mad that Keith had left, and the pent-up frustrations had all come pushing out at once.

“You don’t know a damn thing, Lance,” Keith said in a low tone, and Lance felt the ever-growing chasm between them crack open even further.

“Well maybe if you would just open up, then—” his words were cut off by Pidge abruptly jumping into the conversation.

“WE HAVE A PROBLEM!” She shouted, voice wavering.

Lance immediately focused.

“Pidge? What is it?” Keith asked, tone neutral once more.

“I’ve got a massive storm coming in on my readings, and ever since our fight with Lotor, our lions haven’t been at full strength. We don’t have the force to outrun it.” She paused. “If we don’t outrun this storm, it could mean the end of Voltron. It has the power to completely wipe us out,” she finished lowly, her panic ridden voice now taken over by the low tone of terror.

The green lion pulled up on his right, and then the yellow lion on his left. The black lion was still in front of him, with Allura in Blue on the other side of Pidge.

“Fall into formation,” Keith said, and the paladins complied.

Lance felt the dread and unease palpate through the rest of the team. The line fell silent, interrupted once when Pidge let out a small noise. She didn’t bother to share what she had seen on her equipment, and Lance was grateful.

He’d had enough emotions for today, thanks.

Sound crackled with feedback, and at first, he thought it was the comms again. Rolling his eyes, he glanced to his right to check, noticing the energy surge a heartbeat too late.

“Lance!”

He was thrown roughly to the side as something heavy slammed into him, propelling him forward, barely beyond the worst of the energy surge.

It wasn’t enough, though, and Lance felt it in every fiber of his being as it shattered with no noise at all, the sheer power radiating from the explosion threatening to tear him apart at the seams.

Spinning, wildly out of control, Lance fought down a wave of nausea. His eyes were screwed shut, and everything ached, everything hurt.

He knew that his lion was being thrown off course, but there was nothing that he could do to stop it, to fix it.

Lance felt a tremor flutter in his core.

The red lion smashed into a hard object, sending it careening off course once more. He was steadily picking up speed, hurtling down, down, down, the abrupt force of gravity pulling at his jaw and his collarbone.

Dark spots were beginning to dance in his vision, and his head pounded. There was no noise, there was no feeling, as Lance continued to hurtle towards his end.

He just hoped that everyone else made it out okay.

_Bam!_

The lion crashed _hard_ into the ground, Lance being thrown forward in his seat, his harness keeping him from becoming no more than human paste on the windshield.

The world rocked to a halt, and the spots grew thicker, his limbs grew heavier.

And then, all at once, everything slipped into black.

~~~

It felt like Lance had just gotten off of a merry-go-round teacup, the kind his siblings liked to spin too fast, to the point where all but Marco was pressed firmly against the rim, unable to move due to the g-force. Nausea rolled through him in waves, rocking him where he lay.

He couldn’t open his eyes for a significant period of time, and when he did, harsh light blinded him. Lance blinked, trying to clear his vision, doing his best to keep the world from spinning on its axis.

His back was padded; he was laying on something soft and squishy. The cockpit chair was not nearly this comfortable, and Lance adjusted with a groan of pain. Every nerve ending in his body felt like it had been hit. _I feel like I was beat with rubber hoses._ Something else rolled through him now, a different kind of pain as his papa’s favorite saying popped into his mind.

_Home. They had been headed home._

With the black spots slowly disintegrating, Lance was beginning to get a proper look at his surroundings. Barren branches cut the sky into pieces, a hazy blue fading behind the sharp black of the trees. Well, at least Lance thought they were trees. Based on previous random planet flora, they could be anything.

For now, though, they were trees.

Slowly, Lance sat up, shivering as he did so. All around him was snow. White and rolling, it was soft in the way that only snow could be, lacking any footprints or animal tracks. It didn’t look recent, though, based on the bits of black soil that crept up in certain places. Lance put a hand down, sinking in all the way to his forearm, before slowly retracting it. As soon as his hand was gone, the snow reformed around the indent, leaving only the faintest blue coloration from his fading armor.

_Weird_ , he thought. _But not the weirdest thing I’ve seen._

There were no data symbols flashing across his helmet, nothing to track his blood pressure or oxygen levels or to tell him if the air was safe to breathe. It was as if the power had been pulled.

It wasn’t the first time this had happened, but it was certainly inconvenient.

Standing up, Lance sank to mid-shin before leveling out. Another survey revealed only the same information. White, white snow, black and empty trees, and nothing else as far as they eye could see. No lion—red or black—no Kalternecker, no anything.

A tremor passed through his body, and Lance felt goosebumps break out on his skin, even if he couldn’t see them. Even though he was wearing his armor, Lance still rubbed at his arms nonetheless, trying to dissipate the feeling.

“Hello?” he called out hesitantly, voice muffled by the helmet that lacked a functioning microphone.

He took another step in the snow, sinking down to his knees now. “Hello?” he tried again.

The more he moved in the snow, the deeper he sank. There was nothing _except_ for snow here, and something dawned on him, the early stages of a revelation flitting through his head.

There was nothing but snow.

Everywhere he looked, there was nothing but snow, snow, and more snow. Even the trees now seemed distant.

Now sunk all the way up to his hips in white, Lance struggled to inhale. Moving as slowly as possible, he turned to gauge the distance to the nearest tree. It looked farther away than when he had first spotted it, now only a slim black line in the distance.

There was no way for him to get to the tree without being swallowed whole by the snow.

He had to try, though. After all that he faced, death a second time by suffocation was lame. If he was gonna go, he was gonna go nobly.

Lance tried toggling his external microphone again. Nothing. He had stopped sinking for now, and the snow was packed tightly against his legs. He tried moving them, and found that it was like moving through water. But it meant that the snow was now level with his naval.

He took another look at the tree. There was no telling if it would be able to support his weight, but it was a solid mass that didn’t seem to succumb to the snow. And for now, that was all that he needed.

He stuck a hand in the snow, grabbing a fist full and pulling it up. For a moment, it retained its shape, and then began to slip through his fingers like sand.

_Snow that behaved like quicksand. Add that to the list of unusual things that can kill me._

Lance remembered reading somewhere that escaping quick sand was fairly easy, so long as you didn’t try to struggle too much. It was actually pretty close to swimming, if he was remembering it correctly.

Slowly, Lance leaned back, until his back rested on the snow. He waited for it to give way beneath him, but it held. His legs came next, bit by bit, until he was flat on his back in a starfish position. Never in his life had Lance been so grateful for the training that Keith had put them through.

Suddenly, the snow gave out beneath him, and Lance became submerged. His helmet prevented him from sucking in a large lungful of snow, his heavy breathing fogging up the glass.

He stopped sinking after a moment, the barest patch of sky seen above him. Branches still sectioned it off, even though it was impossible to tell what trees they were coming from.

Lance fought his way up, moving slowly and carefully, his nerves a tight wire in his chest. He was on his back; there was no way for him to tell how far he was now from the tree. He could only hope that he was going in the right direction, and began to backstroke his way to the dark figure.

Sooner than he expected, his helmet connected with something hard, and Lance sucked in a sharp breath as pain radiated down his neck. He sat up—the snow holding—and found that he was right next to the tree he had been aiming for.

There were no low hanging branches for which to pull himself up by, and the tree seemed entirely smooth. It lacked the texture that Lance had come to expect.

Snow that felt like quicksand, and trees that felt like silk. Where the hell was he?

A blob of red shifted in his peripheral, and he turned towards it on instinct. He sank slightly into the white substance, but remained where he was for the most part.

Nothing.

Lance pursed his lips, fighting the urge to panic.

He had to get back to his lion and get out of here.

Another flash of red, and Lance turned more slowly this time. There—red and white against black. _Paladin armor_.

But it couldn’t be. There was no way that Keith would be here as well. Their leader hadn’t been stupid enough to be the one to push Lance out of the way.

Against all odds, though, the figure in red turned, and Lance caught sight of dark bangs hanging low over a drastically pale face.

“Keith!” Lance sank lower into the snow, his voice barely decipherable behind the thick glass in front of his face.

It was enough that Keith turned, though. Lance could have sobbed. He wasn’t alone out here.

Keith’s eyes widened at the sight of Lance sinking into the ground, and began to move over to him.

Lance shook his hands frantically, trying to signal to Keith that he needed to stay put. It would do them no good if both of them were swallowed by the snow.

He must have gotten the message, though, because he halted, only up to his shins in the snow. Keith looked carefully from Lance to the tree, and then back to Lance.

Lance had stopped sinking in the snow. In fact, it had become solid beneath him, and no matter how hard he pushed, his hands and butt no longer sank.

_What the quiznack?_

Lance heaved himself upward, waiting to sink back into the frigid mass. Nothing happened.

He looked over at Keith, who looked just as perplexed as Lance felt.

Keith began making his way over to Lance, walking easily on the snow. “Lance, what happened?”

Lance shook his head, holding up his hands. “I have no idea. The last thing I remember was being in our lions, and the storm, and then falling…” he trailed off as he noticed the expression that Keith was wearing.

Keith looked royally pissed, his arms crossed and tucked tight against his chest, mouth turned down and eyes narrowed.

“What?” Lance asked carefully.

Keith raised his eyebrows. “‘What’?” he repeated, “‘what’? Lance, what the hell do you mean ‘what’? You know why we’re in this situation. We’re here because you couldn’t focus on what was happening, and didn’t manage to get out of the way in time. Now we’ve lost the lions, most of our food, and the others, and it’s all your fault.”

Lance was stunned. Keith was practically shaking. It took a moment for the significance of his words to hit home, but when they finally did, Lance, too, was shaking. “ _My fault_? Ding dong, you’re wrong. You’re the one that was cold to me during our food collecting, you’re the one that’s been distant since you’ve gotten back, and you’re the one that was stupid enough to save me!” His voice continued to rise in pitch, and Keith reared back.

“Well excuse me for caring about the good of the team!” Keith shot back, and Lance rolled his eyes.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. You did it for the good of the team, and not at all because you care about me. How stupid of me to forget. I mean, after all, you consider me to be the dumb one, the one you want out of your life so that you don’t have to spend eternity with me.”

Oh yeah, Lance hadn’t forgotten about that. Not at all. In the depths of the night, Keith’s reasoning behind picking him during the game-show nightmare still got stuck in his head. He was positive that the only reason Keith picked him was because Shiro wasn’t there to pick instead.

Keith took a step back, and subsequently sank to his waist in snow. His arms were sticking straight up, and he was steadily slipping further and further down into the white substance.

“Keith!” Lance cried out in alarm, anger quickly forgotten. “Are you okay? Don’t move, you’ll only sink deeper!”

And just like that, the ground solidified around them, and Keith was being ejected out of the snow.

The dark-haired boy landed heavily on his hands and knees, sides heaving from the deep breaths he was taking in.

“What… the fuck… is this _shit_ ,” he said, in between inhales.

Lance crouched down, reaching out a hand to pull Keith up. “I have no idea, but the sooner we get out of it, the better.”

Keith nodded, and allowed Lance to pull him up. Just as quickly, though, animosity settled between them, the last words that Lance spoke still thick in the air.

“Lance, I—” Keith started, but Lance cut him off with a shake of his head.

“Let’s just get moving. We either need to find shelter or our lions, but either way, we need to do it fast. I want to get out of this snow before one of us really does sink.”

Keith hesitated for a moment, his violet eyes wide, and then finally nodded. They set off, sinking to mid shin with every step they took, but for as long as they walked, there was nothing.

Eventually, even the too smooth trees thinned out, and finally disappeared altogether. All there was, was a large expanse of white and a soft blue sky becoming darker by the minute. Nightfall would descend soon, and Lance felt a shiver rake down his spine.

“Lance, do you see that?” Lance was startled out of his thoughts by Keith’s words, and followed to where he was pointing. Lance squinted for a minute before finally seeing something in the distance: a jagged gray outcropping, barely reaching up into the sky.

“What do you want to bet there’s a cave over there?” Lance asked.

Keith grinned at him, and Lance’s stomach flipflopped. “Exactly what I was thinking, sharpshooter.”

Lance gave him a small smile back, and for a moment, they just stood there, neither breaking the connection. Keith, as always, was the first to turn away, and something small and cold balled itself up where that warm feeling had been.

Setting course for the peak in the distance, Lance kept his eyes trained on Keith’s back as they trudged through the slush. Once more, the quality of the snow had shifted, and it was back to walking on solid ground. If Keith picked up on it, he didn’t say anything.

It was cold, and it was quiet, and it was driving Lance insane. Back home on earth, he had never gone more than twelve minutes _tops_ in silence before someone or something had made noise that drove the whole house back into overdrive. He even knew because he had timed it. But here, out on the barren landscape, all there was were his thoughts. And Lance couldn’t stand to be left alone with those.

“Keith,” he started, and the boy in front of him stuttered to a halt. Their microphones still weren’t working, so Lance was a tad bit surprised that he could hear him.

Keith turned back to face him, and Lance noticed a thin ring of red around Keith’s eyes. Had Keith… had Keith been crying?

Lance wasn’t sure he was in the position to ask. “Thank you,” he said instead, tongue heavy as he ground out the words.

Keith gazed back at him, violet eyes searching, before giving a tight nod. And then Keith went back to walking, his back once more to Lance, and Lance was left alone with his thoughts.

There was too much inside of his head, too much that he wanted to say and couldn’t. Couldn’t express the way that Keith made him feel even with the small glances that were sent his way. Couldn’t say how grateful he was that Keith was the one by his side. Couldn’t say how much he wished things were different between them.

A question that he didn’t want to answer drifted through his mind, and he shoved it out of the closest ear. There was no time for things like that.

Actually, that was a lie. They had all of the time in the world.

His limbs were growing tired and heavy by the time they finally got even remotely close to the peak. There wasn’t even a guarantee that there was going to be a cave here, but as Keith said, it was still worth a shot.

Lance groaned, and Keith looked over his shoulder at him. Lance groaned again, louder, and Keith’s mouth quirked.

“Tired?” he teased, and Lance gave him the finger in response. A short chuckle, barely audible, but it gave more strength to his weary joints.

And then, just like the tree, the mountain was suddenly upon them. Jagged rocks lined the base of it, capped in white to hide the sharpest of peaks.

“Look for a cave,” Keith said gruffly, and Lance made a face at his back.

“Uh, and split up? I don’t think so compadre.”

Keith shot a look over his shoulder. “Suit yourself.” His tone sounded nonchalant, but the set to his shoulders said something else. What it said, Lance wasn’t sure, but it was enough to know that Keith didn’t mean what he said.

He trailed after Keith, making sure to keep one eye on the red helmet while the other did try to look for a cave. But for all that he looked, all he saw was white, white, white.

Lance’s legs ached with every single step they took, and all he wanted was to curl up in a nice warm bed. Hell, he’d even take the bunks in the lions right now; they weren’t great, but they were a significant step up from snow that ate you.

Mere seconds away from collapsing, Lance surged back to life when Keith called out his name. “Lance, look! There’s a cave, c’mon.” The excitement in his voice was what drove Lance to chase after the now sprinting Keith, despite the fact that he was pretty sure that his legs were no longer attached to his body.

A howling wind had picked up, and even through his helmet, the chill bit at Lance’s cheek, causing him to stagger as he walked. No stats would appear, but he knew that he had to be running out of oxygen by now, with no way to tell what the outer atmosphere would be like.

They burst into the cave, skittering to a halt, and the wind died immediately. Once more, it was utterly silent. Almost like the world was holding its breath for something.

Lance shivered, trying to clear his head from the negative, nagging thoughts. _Worlds can’t hold their breaths. It wasn’t a thing._

The cave was dark, impossible to see even a foot in front of you. Lance tried the switch on his helmet to activate his flashlight, and, despite everything else refusing to work, it cast a dull beam around the area. A second beam popped up half a minute later, and Lance looked over at Keith.

There were dark circles beneath the other boy’s eyes, a downward tug to his lips. In a word, he looked exhausted.

Taking a risk that he was sure to get reprimanded for, Lance flipped the visor up on his helmet, breathing in fresh air for the first time in several hours.

Keith growled a warning at him, and Lance glared into the distance. “I was suffocating in this hunk of metal,” he said, refusing to look at Keith. He didn’t want to see the disappointment and annoyance etched into the leader’s features.

_Click._ Lance looked over at the sound, only to find Keith’s visor flipped up as well. “We don’t know what the atmosphere is like, but I agree. Too long with my own air.” Keith’s words were clearer, crisper, without the impediment that came from the lack of a functioning microphone.

“Do you think we’ll be safe in here?” Lance asked, moving his head to cast the low beam around.

“No idea,” Keith said, and Lance choked on his own fear. He coughed, trying to clear his throat, but Keith paid him no mind. Keith was too busy wandering deeper and deeper into the cave, with nothing but his own meager headlamp to guide him.

Lance’s heart shot up a notch at the prospect of Keith wandering in without him. “Hey, didn’t we agree we would stick together,” Lance said, hating the waver in his words.

Keith spared him a glance over his shoulder, surprised. “Oh. I didn’t think you were serious about that.”

Lance scoffed. “Yeah, I know you’d love to leave me behind at any chance you got, but we should stick together.”

Keith’s face softened. “Lance, I’m not going to leave you behind. I’m here for you.”

“Even if it means being stuck with me for eternity?”

Keith let out a short laugh, turning his back to Lance again. “ _Especially_ if it means being stuck with you for eternity.”

Despite the chill in the air, Lance felt a little warmer.

Keith’s foot connected with something, and he went sprawling. Lance was close behind him, landing in a tangle of limbs next to Keith.

Their lights landed on a pile of sticks, stacked five high, and tied with a straw cord. “That’s… convenient,” Lance said slowly, not wanting to turn around, lest he find a yeti standing over his dinner.

Keith shuffled back, letting out a soft ‘oof’ as he connected with something else. “I think we found the back of the cave,” he groaned.

“So, there’s just a pile of sticks, in the middle of a barren wasteland, in an empty cave, and we’re not going to question it at all?”

“Do you _want_ to question it?”

“It just seems suspicious, that’s all.”

“Weren’t you the one who runs headfirst into everything and doesn’t stop to question the suspicious? I happen to remember you being handcuffed to a tree because of that exact thing.”

“Oh really, Mr. Stab Now, Question Once Dead? You’ve nearly gotten us killed on _multiple_ occasions because you don’t ever stop to think!”

“Oh yeah, well—”

A shriek outside stopped their argument, cutting through all of their words like a knife through butter. It was too painful to be the wind, too haunting. But there was nothing else it could be.  _It had to be the wind._

“Lance…” Keith said hesitantly, and a hand found his in the dark. Lance squeezed Keith’s hand, and Keith squeezed back.

_They were right there, together._

“We need to explore the rest of this cave, and start a fire if we can,” Lance said, sounding calmer than he felt.

Keith nodded, and they set to work. Slowly, foot by foot, they cleared the area. The cave had a round back wall, looking for all intents and purposes like a stereotypical cave. Everything about it set off alarm bells in Lance’s head, but he was too tired to do much more than listen to them and file them away in his “think about this at 2 am for no reason” folder.

Keith was the one to drag the bundle of wood over to the center of the cave, far enough away from the mouth, but not quite the back. The chill seemed to have dissipated, not making it past the entrance to their hideout, and Lance’s cheeks felt rosy. A match was struck, and the kindle lit with the sharp snap of splintering sticks. Warmth and light flooded the cave.

“Why the hell do you keep matches in your pocket?” Lance asked, incredulous, after Keith was stuffing the matchbox back into where he had magically pulled it from.

Keith shrugged, giving a “I just do,” that only confused Lance more.

Lance wasn’t sure he _wanted_ to question it though, not when they had a warm fire going.

Shadows danced along the cave wall, and Lance had the impulse to make shadow animals before he quickly squashed it down. He didn’t need Keith thinking that he was immature. Well, more immature than he already was.

A quick sweep of the cave confirmed what they already knew: they were utterly alone out here.

Keith sat against the wall opposite Lance, knees tucked almost up to his chest and arms resting on them. He gazed into the fire, the flames making his scar seem harsher than it was.

“I’m sorry,” Keith said, and Lance looked up sharply. He tried to meet Keith’s eyes, but Keith still watched the dancing orange and red.

“For what?” Lance asked.

Keith was silent for a moment. “For being gone for so long. For… for being harsh on you when I came back.”

Lance watched him, bewildered. “Keith—”

“You don’t have to say it was okay, because it wasn’t. But I just had to tell you that I was wrong, I was out of line, and that I should never have done that.” Keith picked this moment to look up, his eyes glassy. Lance had the sudden urge to crawl over and cradle Keith until the sun rose, whisking away all of those fears and regrets.

But he couldn’t. Because Keith was in love with Shiro.

“I won’t say it’s okay then,” Lance said softly. “But I’m so glad that you’re back.”

They held eye contact, and this time it was Lance to be the first to look away. There was so much resting on the tip of his tongue, so much weighing him down with all of the words he couldn’t say, that it took every ounce of self-control in his body to keep from spilling over with all of his truths.

But Lance being Lance, well, he didn’t really have strength when it came to holding things back.

“I’m glad you’re the one here with me,” he said, having deemed it the safest thing to say.

He heard Keith swallow from the other side of the cave. “Me too.”

They were both silent for some time, each lost in their own thoughts.

“We need to get a plan together,” Lance said, breaking the air.

Keith grunted in agreement. “First and foremost, we have to find our lions. Is Red responding to you at all?”

Lance concentrated for a moment, trying to reach out to the bond he shared with Red, but it was utterly silent. He shook his head in defeat.

Keith grimaced. “It’s the same way with Black. I can’t hear her at all. There must be something masking them from us, which means we’re going to have to find them all on our own. And then there’s the issue of our suits. Given how long we were out today, we probably don’t have much more oxygen left in our suits, and there’s no way for us to know what the atmosphere is like out there without any of our equipment working.”

“So, we’re just supposed to wander around in the snow that can eat us and hope and pray that we manage to find our lions before either the environment kills us, or our suits kill us?”

“Yup,” Keith deadpanned. Lance couldn’t help it; he laughed.

“This is the worst plan we’ve ever come up with.”

Keith cracked a small smile, and Lance felt his stomach become acquainted with the ground. “Agreed.” His expression turned somber again. “But it’s the only hope we’ve got in returning to the others.”

_With Shiro_. The unspoken words threatened to suffocate him like his suit, but Lance shoved them as far down as they would go into his brain folder called, “things that will bite me in the ass but I don’t want to deal with now.”

Weariness was pulling at his eyelids again, and Lance shifted further down the wall. Before he knew it, they were fully shut, and Keith’s words startled him back to life.

“I’ll take the first shift. You get some rest, Lance.”

Lance was ready to protest, but he was already falling back asleep. “Lance,” Keith said softly, and Lance cracked a single eye open. He could blearily see Keith chewing on his lower lip, his only giveaway that he was anxious about something. “Good night,” he said at last.

“Good night, Keith, don’t let the space bugs bite,” Lance mumbled, a smile pulling at his sleepy face.

He was already gone when Keith smiled back at him, whispering words he could never say when Lance was awake.

~~~

_Lance was pushed out of the way, spinning head over tail, before slowing to a halt, just in time to see the lightning strike Black._

_“NO!” he screamed, but it was no use. The light in Black’s eyes fizzled out, until the lion drifted in the void of space._

_Lance frantically smashed at the comms button. “Keith! Keith are you there!” A sob escaped his lips. “Keith, please!”_

A hand was shoving roughly at his shoulder, and Lance shot up with a gasp, sides heaving. _It was just a dream._

When he looked around at his surroundings, though, he had to wonder if nightmares were really worse than reality.

But there was Keith, alive and anxious, looking at him with wide violet eyes. “Lance, are you okay?”

Lance nodded, struggling to get his heartrate under control. “Is it my shift?” he asked, when he finally had a decent amount of air back into his lungs.

Keith looked guiltily back at him. “I uh, I may have fallen asleep already. It’s morning time.”

Lance wanted to be upset, he really did, but one look at Keith’s face and all of his anger melted away. “We could have gotten hurt,” he says gently, and Keith nods, looking even guiltier. Lance hated that he was the one to contribute to that look on his face.

He reached a hand up, placing his palm on top of Keith’s hand, still resting on his shoulder. “It’s okay man. Neither of us got hurt. We’re okay.”

Keith nodded back at him, looking anywhere but at Lance’s face, and Lance’s heart panged. _God, he looks so beautiful right now._

Before he knew it, he was leaning in, and Keith was looking back at him with those wide violet eyes that Lance couldn’t forget if he tried.

Abruptly, Keith stood up, and Lance was jolted back to the reality where he couldn’t just randomly lean in and try to kiss the guy he had a massive crush on. Especially since said guy liked someone else.

Lance felt heat rise to his cheeks, and there was no smooth way to pass it off as an effect of the dead fire.

_Shit._

“We better get moving,” Keith said gruffly, and Lance felt his insides shrink and turn sour.

Without a word, they each gathered their helmets, tugging them on. Lance tried once more to see if any of his systems were working, and, much to his delight, the outside microphone seemed to have been triggered.

“Hey, Keith, can you hear me?” he asked, words spoken with perfect clarity. Keith looked up at him in surprise. “The external mic turned back on for me. Wonder why.”

Keith triggered his own, speaking a few test words.

It still felt… off, to Lance, but it was another one of those good fortune things that he didn’t want to question.

As they began to make their way out of the cave, Lance glanced back only once, the uncanny feeling of someone watching them present in the rigidity of his spine.

There was no one lurking in the darkness, and Lance shook his head, trying to clear away the clutter.

It was just him and Keith, out here in the barren snow forest.

Just him and Keith.

Him and Keith.

_Fuck._

~~~

There was no denying it now, as much as Lance wished that he could.

They were hopelessly lost.

And Lance was hopelessly pining over Keith.

Hunk was going to win the bet as to when Lance was finally ready to admit that this crush wasn't going away anytime soon, which Lance should have been annoyed about, but he was madder at himself for this crush that he just couldn’t seem to shake. Every single time that Keith turned around to smile at him, or give him directions, or even just roll his eyes over another comment that Lance gave, Lance felt his heart thunder in his chest. He wouldn’t even be surprised if his cheeks had permanently been stained pink.

He was also pretty sure that their chances of making it out of here alive were quickly diminishing. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday, right before they were knocked off course. It had been that disgusting bark, but hey, it had been something. By now, his stomach was grumbling, and he was getting hangry. All of the bark that had been in his pocket had been thrown to Kalternecker—

“Kalternecker!” he shouted, and Keith spun around, startled by his outburst.

“The cow?” he questioned.

“She was in my lion when we crashed!” Lance felt his heart sinking. This whole time, she had been by herself, and Lance had been panicking over a _crush._

Keith didn’t look nearly as dismayed as he should. “Lance, she’s a cow. She’ll be fine.”

Lance felt the air begin to catch in his throat. “But we’re on a frozen snow planet! And she’s probably out of food, and what if the snow got inside of my lion, and what if—”

“ _Lance_.” Keith said firmly, two strong hands gripping him on the biceps. Lance’s heart thundered for a different reason now, and he was pretty sure that the heat on his face could melt the entire area surrounding them.

_Keith was so close, that I could kiss him._

His arms burned where Keith’s hands were, and despite the fire certainly raging on his face, Keith stayed exactly where he was.

“Lance,” Keith said again, softer this time, and Lance nearly whined. He’d never had a crush that hurt this much before. “Kalternecker is fine. She can handle herself; she’s a cow for shit’s sake. And besides, you had all of the food in your lion, right? She can eat that.” Keith didn’t mention how she would probably eat the rest of their food supplies, but Lance heard the words anyways.

Keith was gazing into Lance’s eyes, and finally, Lance was able to relax slightly. Yes, Kalternecker would be fine. They would get back to their lions, and Kalternecker would be there, munching on bark and mooing at him for being gone so long.

Keith bumped their helmets together. “Everything’s going to be fine, Lance.” He said it with such conviction that Lance was tempted to believe him.

The dark-haired boy stepped back, and Lance felt like he was able to breathe again. Keith shuffled nervously, as if suddenly embarrassed about what he had said. _Not that he was the one to have something to be embarrassed about_ , Lance thought bitterly.

Keith was turning away now, and Lance let out a small groan, dragging a hand over the visor of his helmet.

Of all the people in the universe, how did he manage to fall for the one person who could never like him back?

~~~

If possible, the second day was worse than the first. The snow was firmer than it had been when they initially landed—which still confused Lance—but it also meant that it was slipperier. Lance’s feet had skidded out on him four times now, and each time he landed on his ass—hard. And every fucking time, Keith was there, holding a hand out and helping him up.

After the fourth time this happened, Lance looked up at the clear blue sky. _Hi, yes, forces of the universe? Yeah, fuck you._

Keith, being the perfect asshole that he was, didn’t slip once. Perfect footing, perfect balance, perfect, perfect, perfect.

Lance sighed.

His stomach grumbled again, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten. The sky showed no signs of growing darker, and there was no sun to gauge the time of day. There were also no trees, no bushes, no other sign of life.

Somehow, his suit was operating enough that it recycled the water provided, so Lance wasn’t hopelessly dehydrated.

Being hungry sucked though.

He was used to the familiar ache, and knew that he could go for a while longer without eating. But he was getting sluggish, his movements growing slower, and Keith noticed.

“Why don’t we take a break?” he suggested, and Lance could have kissed him.

_Stop it, Lance. There’s no time for gay thoughts._

They both plopped down right where they were, the cold snow seeping into Lance’s suit, leeching away the meager amount of heat that he had managed to generate. He was staring up at the sky, regretting the life decisions that had put him in this situation, when something knocked against his helmet.

He ignored it, and it knocked again. “Please just take it,” Keith said, and Lance finally turned to look.

A single, heaven-sent energy bar was behind thrust at him, and Lance reached up to take it from the outstretched hand.

“I thought you said you didn’t have any food,” he said carefully, wrapping his fingers around the bar.

Keith shrugged, pink dusting his cheeks. “I was saving this until we really needed it.”

Lance sat up, everything in his body aching, until he was sitting crisscross, knee to knee, with Keith. The pink flush only grew worse. _Must be the cold._

“How many of these do you have?” Lance asked, popping the visor on his helmet. Cold immediately rushed in.

Keith looked away, mumbling something.

“What?”

“I said, ‘one’, okay? Just take it. I’m okay.”

Lance frowned. “Uh, nope, try again. That’s not how we’re doing this. We’ll split it, half and half.”

Keith stilled. “What?”

“Did you hit your head or something when we landed?” Lance asked with a small laugh. “I said, we’ll split it.”

“But you’re hungry,” Keith replied.

“And so are you,” Lance countered, and Keith finally looked back at him, a pained expression on his face. Lance wasn’t taking any of his self-sacrificing bullshit, though, and split the bar evenly in half. He held one half out to Keith, who looked at it for a good thirty seconds before taking it. Flipping up his visor, he stuffed his entire meal into his mouth, and then flipped his visor shut again.

Lance couldn’t help it; he laughed at the sight of Keith, with his cheeks puffed up, looking like a chipmunk prepping for winter. In a way, he was a chipmunk prepping for winter.

Keith tried to frown at him, but it was hard with the food in his mouth, and he ended up looking like an unhappy rodent. Lance only laughed harder.

He was also freezing his butt off. Following suit, he stuffed his half into his mouth and shut his visor once more. Warmth bled back into his cheeks.

Keith swallowed, and Lance nearly choked on his own food. His cheeks had lost their chipmunk quality. Barely any of his face showed through the visor of his helmet, but Lance knew Keith’s face better than he knew his own. The way that his nose sloped gently downward, with a small bump in the middle from where some prick had broken it back at the Garrison. How his eyes were wide and searching, but held too many secrets to count. His thin upper lip, and his full lower one. Lance spent far too much time thinking about those lips.

Keith shifted, causing their knees to knock, and it broke whatever spell Lance had fallen into. He swore at himself, wanting to leap into the nearest Yelmore pit. This was bad. This was so, so bad.

“You okay there?” Keith asked, and Lance nodded, not trusting his voice enough to not begin spilling all of his secrets. He saw Keith’s mouth turn down out of the corner of his eye. “Lance, you look like you’re about to throw up.”

_Great, cause that’s exactly how I feel._

“I’m fine,” Lance mumbled.

“Are you sure?”

Lance wanted to laugh. God, the irony. He finally settled on, “yeah. I just owe Hunk a great deal of money when we meet back up with them.”

Keith stood up, offering Lance a hand. “Then let’s get back to them.”

The romantic in Lance swooned, and he fought to keep his breathing in check. _It had never been this bad before._

If at all possible, the snow got even stiffer underneath him.

_What the fuck?_

“We have _got_ to get out of here,” Lance muttered. Keith was staring down at their feet, before looking up and grimacing.

“Agreed,” he said, and they set off once more, back into the barren wasteland that threatened to swallow them whole.

~~~

“It feels like we haven’t been moving at all,” Lance complained. They had been walking for what felt like hours after their snack break, and once more, Lance was hungry.

Keith only grunted in reply, and Lance knew that he was exhausted as well.

They hadn’t passed any trees, and mountains, any… _anything_ , really. Just empty snow planes that left Lance to the depths of his mind.

They also left no footprints in the snow.

Lance had the uncanny feeling that something was following them, but every time he glanced over his shoulder, he was presented with the same sight. More and more of his suit was beginning to boot up, but nothing in it bothered to display where the hell they were, what the hell the atmosphere was like, and why the hell no one had bothered to try and contact them.

Pidge should have found them by now.

…right?

Keith stumbled in front of him—the first sign of weakness he had shown—and Lance lunged out to catch him. He wasn’t quick enough, though, and he landed on his knees next to Keith.

“Are you—”

His words were interrupted by a deep rumbling beneath them, and both boys froze where they were.

It passed, but neither one of them moved.

“Keith—”

The rumbling came back, and the snow fell out beneath them, and once more, Lance was sent tumbling head over heels.

He hit the ground with a thud, and everything went dark.

 


	2. tree sap is sticky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They fell into another set of caves, and lonely caves are the perfect places for too full hearts to spill over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter consistency? I don't know her  
> On a serious note, this was originally a one-shot, and then as I wrote this chapter I realized it worked better as a chapter fic, and it was based off of where the chapter breaks naturally fell. That being said, they're going to get shorter and shorter.  
> Also, I've been having brain issues as of late and my fingers don't like coordinating with my brain in terms of typing, so if there are spelling errors/grammar things, let me know please :)  
> Comments and Kudos absolutely make my day, so please, please continue to leave them (tell me what your favorite line in this chapter was ;) )

When Lance came to, his head was pounding, and he couldn’t feel his left arm. Struggling to open his eyes, he moaned, shifting until he was on his stomach. Pins and needles flooded his arm, and he groaned. This was worse than not being able to feel it.

Flashing red glared at him from the other side of his eyelids, and he reluctantly opened them, only to find that every single alarm was going off inside of his helmet. Bright and glaring, they told him that everything that could possibly go wrong had gone wrong. There was a puncture somewhere, he was out of oxygen, and that his heartrate was dangerously low.

_Unsurprising_ , he thought.

The buzzing in his arm had reached a crescendo, and he waited for it to pass. When it finally felt like he could put weight on his arm without it giving out, he pushed himself up to a seated position.

His head pounded, and little black dots swarmed his vision. He waited for those to pass as well, struggling to breathe. As his vision cleared, so did his head, until he was left with only a faint pressure in the back of his skull.

_What the fuck?_

He was surrounded by stone from what he could tell, a narrow shaft of light filtering through from the hole in the ceiling. There was a small pile of snow around him, and more snow lined the hole in the roof. His helmet light had been knocked off at some point, and he reached a shaking hand up to turn it back on.

It didn’t give him a lot of visibility, but it gave him _something_. He was in fact sitting on stone, and it resembled the stone from the cave they had been in the night before. Rough under his gloves, it caught on the fibers of the fabric as he grazed a hand over it.

Much of the area surrounding him was dark, and he tried to ignore the fluttering panic in his chest. He had never been one for the dark, and being space hadn’t helped it at all. It was constantly dark, no matter where he looked, to the point where Lance had taken to avoiding windows altogether. What he wouldn’t give to feel the earth sun on his skin again.

His light flickered, and Lance yelped. It steadied again after a moment, and Lance sighed. “Hello?” he called tentatively. “Keith?”

Someone groaned in front of him, and Lance squinted into the darkness. “Keith? Is that you?”

“Fuck off,” groaned a deep voice.

“Yup, that’s you,” Lance huffed. Lance shuffled forward, his wrists and knees aching from where he had previously landed on them. Keith slowly came into view, wincing as Lance’s light hit his face.

If possible, Keith looked worse than Lance did. His visor obscured much of his face, but a deep purple bruise was blossoming on his right cheekbone. He groaned again, rolling over onto his stomach. Lance’s heart panged, and he had the desire to reach out and brush a lock of hair off of his face.

He quelled that desire, though, watching as another wince passed of Keith’s sharp features. “What hurts?” Lance asked gently.

Keith looked up, meeting Lance’s gaze. “Nothing,” he deadpanned, and then sucked in a sharp breath when Lance swatted at him.

Keith’s soft look turned into a glare. “That wasn’t necessary, Lance.”

“There’s my good ol’ Keith,” Lance said, and the glare softened once more.

They held the eye contact for a minute, and then Lance cleared his throat, breaking the connection. Keith attempted to sit up, and then fell back onto his elbows.

“I think I may have bruised a rib.”

“Are your scanners working?”

Keith was silent for a minute, and Lance tracked the way his eyes searched his visor. “All I’ve got is an error warning, but it doesn’t say what for.”

Lance nodded; his previous warnings had morphed into what Keith was describing. “We can’t trust our equipment.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” His words were harsh, but there was no bite to them.

Keith bit his lip as he tried to sit up once more, and this time, he was successful. “We’ve got to get moving, search the area. We can’t trust our surroundings.”

Lance held out a hand to help him all the way up. His hip popped as he stood, and Lance scrunched up his face in effort to keep his pain hidden. Keith was already hurt; the situation didn’t need to be worse.

Keith was leaning heavily into his shoulder, and Lance felt him leaning back before he knew what he was doing. When he realized, though, his heart fluttered in his chest. There wasn’t really anywhere for him to go though, so he looked upwards and prayed to whatever gods hadn’t left him.

A thin arm snaked around his waist, and Lance was pretty sure that there was no god left. Or maybe there was, and they were having fun throwing popcorn at him while they watched him suffer.

“Alright buddy, let’s get you safe,” Lance said, hating the way his heart jackhammered in his chest and how his chest felt like it was going to explode. A warm, tight feeling followed the path that Keith’s arm made, and Lance took a deep breath in.

He could do this. It was only a crush. A crush, that currently had his arm wrapped around Lance’s waist, and was resting his head in the crook of his shoulder. A crush, that would only ever touch him like this when they were both going to die. _Why did his heart continue to hurt like this?_

Lance was going to die, and it wasn’t because of the snow.

They made their way through the cave, the small beam on Lance’s head joined by Keith’s. As they moved farther and farther away from their entrance hole, the visibility grew worse and Lance’s unease grew bigger.

Keith was sagging against him more than he was previously, and Lance was straining under the weight of both of them.

The cave seemed to go on for miles. Exhaustion pulled heavily at his limbs, and Lance was getting near to dropping dead on his feet.

_Bam._

Lance ran face-first into something hard, and he crashed onto his knees, vibrations ricocheting up his thighs.

“Fuck,” he spat, and Keith muttered a similar curse. Lance looked up, trying to cast his light over what they had just run into.

“It’s a tree,” he said at last, reaching out to run a hand over the too smooth bark. “It’s a tree!” he repeated, louder this time, as an idea formed in his mind. “Keith, got any of those matches left?”

“I think so,” Keith said, but Lance only distantly heard him. He was too busy patting down his pockets, searching for what he was pretty sure he had put in…

There!

Lance pulled out his pocket knife, and began stripping away sections of the bark. It was dry, and it should catch easily, just as the bundle had the night before.

His arms burned as he worked, but soon enough, there was a large enough pile that they could light on fire.

Keith struck a match, dropping it into the pile, and it immediately caught flame.

“We should probably make camp here for the night,” Lance said, and Keith nodded his head. His eyelids were drooping, and fatigue pulled at his cheeks.

Lance felt similarly, but the adrenaline that had come from finding the tree had woken him up, however briefly.

Sap leaked from the tree, golden in the fire light, and Lance’s stomach grumbled.

“What are the odds we can eat that?” he asked Keith, glancing over his shoulder at the other boy.

Keith shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I’m not the nature paladin.”

Lance reached up, trying to switch on his helmet popup. Nothing came up on the first try, and he messed with it until something _did_.

A scanner passed over the tree, following his line of vision, and beeped.

“Edible: sap. Nonedible: bark. Species of tree: Unknown.” An emotionless, electronic voice spoke out from Lance’s helmet.

“It knows that the sap is edible but it doesn’t know what species of tree it comes from?” Keith questioned, and Lance felt that familiar sense of unease return.

“It doesn’t sound right,” Lance said slowly, peering at the sap. His stomach grumbled again, and he clenched his jaw. “We need to eat, though. And if it says it’s edible, well…”

“Here goes nothing,” Keith finished for him. His deep voice sounded almost worried, and Lance knew that wasn’t a good sign. But it had been hours since that half of an energy bar, and nothing before that. They had to eat, or risk starving to death.

Lance reached up, flipping off his visor, before using his other hand to collect a dollop of sap from the tree. He stopped at the last minute, tugged off his glove, and then scooped up a fingerful. Eyeing it, he hesitantly put his index finger in his mouth, almost moaning as the sweet sap hit his taste buds.

He tried to talk around the sap, but it was so thick that it almost felt like peanut butter was stuck to the roof of his mouth. It almost _tasted_ like peanut butter, too.

Keith was leaning against the far wall, and when Lance looked over, his helmet was completely off, and he was watching Lance with wide eyes and a slightly parted mouth. The same pink coloring dusted his high cheekbones, and Lance felt his own face similarly heat up. Keith was probably just as hungry as he was.

“Here, I’ll get you some,” Lance said once his mouth was clear, missing the way that Keith’s eyes widened impossibly further. After gathering more sap, he stood up, walked over to where Keith was, and plopped himself back down.

“You want me,” Keith started, eyeing Lance’s finger, “to eat that off your hand?”

Lance’s stomach dropped when he realized the implication of it, and he immediately turned his eyes back to the now roaring fire. “My fingers are clean, I promise,” Lance said, sounding much more put together than he actually felt.

Keith cleared his throat, and Lance felt the embarrassment clawing its way up his neck. _Yes, it’s a totally normal thing to have your crush suck sap off your finger. Totalllly fineeee. Not at all like he’s in love with someone else. Hey, while you’re at it, might as well stick your face in the fire, too, since you’re so keen on making yourself suffer._

He was used to the sarcastic voice in his head making comments like these, but these were also the times that he wished for nothing more than for it to shut the hell up.

Before he could get himself under control, though, Lance’s finger had been popped into Keith’s mouth.

Lance couldn’t help the small noise that he made.

_God, he was such a mess._

Keith froze, and Lance’s finger was suddenly no longer in Keith’s mouth. Lance took back his hand, wiped it on his suit pants, and tried to regain control of his…well, everything.

“Gross, you got germs on me,” he said at last, trying for a joke that came out as a squeak. It worked, though, because Keith immediately became defensive.

“You told me to put your finger in my mouth!”

“Chill, dude, I was making a joke.”

He could feel the withering look that Keith sent his way, and he tried not to feel bothered by it.

They both relaxed into the wall, and Lance finally took his helmet off all the way. He knew that his hair was sticking up in every direction, and running a hand through it only made it worse.

Neither spoke as they warmed up, and even though Lance only had a tiny portion of sap, he felt oddly full.

“Hey man,” Keith said, breaking the silence, and Lance glanced over at him. Keith exhaled heavily through his nose, and Lance merely watched him. “I’m not good with emotions and stuff, and I know I was gone for a long time and—”

“Keith, it’s okay. You don’t have to explain yourself.”

“No, Lance, I need to.” Keith met his eyes, and Lance knew that something thick and heavy rested in the air between them. “I’m sorry,” Keith said, and Lance felt like crying at the pain in his voice. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for the team when I was needed. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to save you from dying.” The last part was a whisper, and Keith’s eyes grew glassy.

“You were there for Shiro, though,” Lance said, hating himself for every word that he spoke. “And he needed you more.” _And you fell in love with him._

“Lance, no,” Keith said, his eyebrows scrunched together. “Why are you so fixated on Shiro?”

Lance snorted. “I'm not the one fixated on Shiro. You are." Keith's brows scrunched impossibly tighter. Lance waited a moment to see if Keith was messing with him, before providing an explanation, drawn out in a slow tone. "Because I overheard you tell Romelle that you were in love with him, and had been since the Garrison?” He meant for it to come out as a statement, but his mouth made it a question instead.

At that, Keith’s face fell. “You… you think I’m in love with Shiro?” There was a look on his face that Lance couldn’t place, but Keith had always been hard to read.

“Yeah, aren’t you?”

Keith blinked at him, once, twice. “You are so fucking stupid, Lance,” Keith breathed, and Lance frowned, the words breaking through the spiral of self-loathing that he was quickly slipping into.

They were nearly nose to nose now, and if Lance’s glanced down, he was sure that he would find their lips even closer together. He kept his gaze locked on Keith’s though, looking for anything in those deep violet eyes that would help the thundering in his chest.

_He doesn’t love you. This is a trick. He doesn’t feel the same way._

The anxiety-fueled thoughts filtered into his head, causing him to pull back. The sharp, familiar sting appeared in his eyes, and he blinked, willing them to go away before they fell.

_Your love will always be unrequited, Lance. Don’t try for anything else_. Words that had been spoken to him in anger by a furious ex lover, but had never been proven false.

Keith audibly swallowed next to him, the moment gone, but Lance couldn’t face him. Didn’t want to see the rejection spelled out in his features, telling Lance that he knew what was about to happen, how disgusted he was with him.

_Because Keith was in love with Shiro, and Lance was in love with Keith._

In this moment, Lance knew he was in love with Keith.

And the word had never hurt more.

The fire began to dwindle, and Lance tossed another few strips of bark into the flames from the pile next to him.

He could feel sleep begging to pull him under, and one glance at Keith said the other boy was feeling the same thing.

A hand reached out to find his, and Lance didn’t fight it as Keith laced their fingers together. If he was going to suffer, might as well make it pleasant. _It will only hurt more now that I’ve had a glimpse of what could have been._

“What was dying like?” Keith asked, curiosity sapping into his sleepy tone.

Lance thought for a moment. “It was soft.”

“Soft?” Keith questioned, making a sound in the back of his throat.

Lance pulled a face at him. “Let me finish, you ass.” Lance was silent for another moment. “It was soft, and dark. There’s supposed to be this light at the end of the tunnel, but I didn’t see one. Maybe I wasn’t dead long enough.”

There was that sound again, sounding more choked this time. “But either way, it was like an embrace, almost. Like I was being hugged, and welcomed home. But it was empty. And lonely. And no amount of softness can replace the feeling of being utterly alone.”

They were both silent as they processed Lance’s words. No one had asked him what dying was like before. Not even Allura. In fact, it was like the other Paladins didn’t even notice he was gone. All he got was an awkward clap on the shoulder from Hunk, and Pidge stumbling through a ‘glad you’re alright’ statement.

The fire began to dim, and Lance was too tired to put more wood on.

“I’m glad you’re the one here,” Keith said quietly.

“Me too,” Lance replied, squeezing Keith’s hand. “Do you think we’re friends again?” Lance asked, a small smirk tugging at his mouth despite everything else.

Keith let out a small chuckle. “Did you think we weren’t?”

Lance’s mouth puckered as he fought to keep from saying what had sprung to the tip of his tongue. _Do you think we could be more?_ He settled on squeezing Keith’s hand again. “Nah, just had to check.”

Keith’s head was leaning against his shoulder again, and Lance let himself sink into the touch, trying to ignore the anxiety in his head. If this was as close as he would get, he would take it.

_Call me yours for the night, even if you don’t mean it in the morning._

Even breathing huffed next to his ear, and Lance knew that Keith was asleep. He also knew that he needed to take first watch, to make sure that they didn’t burn to death in the night or get mauled by cave rats, but sleep had already claimed him.

Lance dreamed of violet, bleeding into the snowy landscape, and of tree sap, dripping down his fingers.

~~~

Something rumbled under his butt, and Lance woke with a start, shooting up and swaying as the blood made it to his head.

He blinked through the pressure in his temples, looking for the source of the commotion. _Nothing._

They were on stone this time, and unless the stone was about to magically give out, they should be okay.

Their fire had gone out, leaving them in utter darkness. Reaching for his helmet and switching on his headlamp, Lance jumped and bit back a scream when Keith’s face came into view, far closer than he should have been.

“Fuck, Keith,” Lance said, running a hand over his eyes. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“Didn’t mean to,” Keith mumbled, and Lance rolled his eyes.

Keith was staring at him, eyes wide and…yellow?

“Are your eyes yellow?” Lance asked, and said yellow eyes narrowed.

“It’s a Galra thing,” Keith said defensively, crossing his arms over his chest. “Helps us see in the dark.”

_That’s adorable_ , Lance thought.

They stared at each other for a moment, and the connection only broke when the ground rumbled underneath them once more.

“It was after the second rumble that the snow fell through,” Lance murmured, dropping into a squat and placing a steadying hand against the cave wall. Something pricked at the back of his neck, like a centipede crawling up his skin. He resisted the urge to reach behind him and swat whatever it was.

_It’s just your nerves_ , he told himself, but a deeper feeling in his gut told him it wasn’t. Figures ran through his head, calculating the probability of something living on this ice rock.

It was that same feeling he got when he felt Keith watching him, and Lance knew better than to turn around.

_Something was with them._

No longer just a childhood fear of the dark, Lance was nearly certain that there was someone or something else behind him.

He made eye contact with Keith, who was looking over his shoulder, yellow eyes alive and glowing. Lance nudged him, breaking his stare, and made hand signals.

_Get up, walk slowly, and keep your light on._

Keith gave no nod in understand, but Lance knew the message was received. Slowly, almost painfully slow, Keith tugged on his helmet, and stood up. Lance followed suit.

He glanced once at the ashes that had once been their source of warmth, and thought back to the first night they had been here.

_With a convenient pile of logs just waiting to be roasted._

Keith glanced over at him, and it was like he was reading Lance’s mind. Heat drew whatever it was to them.

Two warm bodies, and an even warmer fire.

Lance wanted to swear at himself, at Keith, at the _universe,_ but it was more important that they get out of here alive. Once that happened, you can bet your shiny little buttons that Lance was going to swear up a storm.

Warm wind graced his neck, and he felt it even through the armor that he was wearing. He shivered, not able to suppress the urge in time, and fought the desire to run.

They had nothing except Lance’s pocket knife and a few of Keith’s matches. Everything else was in their lions, including their bayards, and Lance was quickly running out of ideas. They couldn’t fight off whatever it was with a mere pocketknife, and Keith was injured, so that threw running out the window.

Matches. Heat.

A vague plan began to form in his mind, but Keith was two steps ahead of him, patting down his pockets to make sure that they still had the matches. Only Lance’s headlamp was on, and he carefully reached up to turn it off.

Pitch black surrounded them, and memories of lonely nights left alone to nightmares threatened to overwhelm him. A hand found his, giving it a quick squeeze.

“We need to be ready to run,” Keith murmured, and Lance squeezed his hand in acknowledgement.

The thing was closer to them now, and Lance could feel the vibrations it made with every step that it took.

Heavy, unspoken words rested on his tongue, and Lance wanted nothing more than to curl up with Keith and let what comes, come.

But they couldn’t do that. They were the Paladins of Voltron. The universe needed them.  _The universe needs Keith._

Lance couldn’t see a thing, but Keith tugged them to a halt. The hand that had been holding his was gone now, and there was the distinct sound of a match being lit, right before a single spark of a flame lit up.

All the air left Lance’s lungs in a rush.

The thing was like nothing he had ever seen before. Big and hulking, it rested on its knuckles, arms forward. Matted grey fur clung to a rotting body, strips of flesh hanging down around its torso. A snarling, loose jaw hung from its face, barely attached to its body. There were no eyes that Lance could see, but he knew the thing was looking directly at him.

It sniffed, turning its decomposing face towards the match.

“Run,” Keith breathed, and chucked the match directly at the thing.

Lance knew it fizzled out right after Keith had thrown it, but the momentary distraction was enough to give them a running start. Lance knew that he could easily outpace Keith, but without a light to guide him and the fact that Keith was injured meant that he was the one being dragged along.

Heavy breathing sounded right in front of him, and Lance’s head throbbed from the sheer amounts of adrenaline coursing through his body.

He trusted Keith not to run them into a wall. After all, he was following him blindly. Somehow, in the midst of all that was going on, the love addled side of his brain managed to crack a pickup joke.

Oh, how he wished he could turn his mind off in times like this.

He’s stumbling, tripping over things he can’t see. Head pounding, heart throbbing, Lance allowed himself to be drug deeper and deeper into this nightmare.

His shoulder nearly dislocated when Keith yanked him violently to the right, his stomach lurching as he fought to regain his footing.

Stone wall pushed up against his back, and he was being shoved—rather ungracefully—into a crevice.

A warm body pushed up against his front, and Lance sucked in a sharp breath.

_All the stars in the universe couldn’t save him now._

Because Keith was _here_ , and pressed up against him, and his heart was doing that in his chest, and Lance couldn’t breathe.

And it wasn’t at all because of the warm hand pressed against his mouth.

Keith didn’t need to say anything, and Lance’s eyes were wide in the darkness. If he moved forward even a hair, his nose was brush against Keith’s. The bottom part of his visor was up, his eyes still protected, but Lance wanted it gone. He wanted all the stupid separation between them _gone._

Because the deeper Lance fell for Keith, the more he missed him. Missed the easy joking between them, the casual flirting that didn’t mean anything. The falsified rivalry, there for the sole reason of getting Keith to notice him. Going along with being called Taylor, because at least Keith called him something.

Even getting thrown into space together.

Before anything else, they had been friends. Before Keith had left the first time, before he had pretended to forget who Lance was. Through every bonding moment, through every near death and actual death experience, through travelling across countless galaxies together.

They were friends. And Lance couldn’t lose Keith another time.

It was difficult to meander his arm up, due to the wall and how closely Keith was pressed against him.

But eventually, he got his hand up, and as much as it pained him to do so, pulled Keith’s gently away from his mouth.

“Keith,” he whispered, and despite the black, aching darkness pressing in from every side, the faint yellow that marked Keith’s Galra side found his own eyes.

“Hush,” Keith said, so gently, so softly, that Lance felt his heart shatter.

“Keith,” he said again, and the yellow eyes turned down at the corners. Like he already knew where this was going. “If we don’t make it out of here—”

“Don’t say that, Lance. We’re going to make it out of here.”

Lance ignored him, too determined not to lose his nerve. “If we don’t make it out of here,” he repeated, and Keith’s eyes turned glassy, “I need you to know something.”

It was silent, and Lance strained his ears for the monster. “Keith, I love you,” he said, voice breaking on the l.

“Lance—” every time Keith said his name like that, his heart gave a hopeful lurch, and this time was no different.

“Please,” Lance said, but he didn’t know what he was pleading for. The warm body pressed up against his under different circumstances? The violet eyes that he adored so much to look at him with anything _other_ than pity?

For Keith to love him back?

A roar echoed, sounding too close, and both of them froze. Lance strained his ears again, listening for the telltale thump that it was behind them, but there was nothing.

“Do you think it—” his words were cut off by a shriek, shrill and painful, and suddenly, there was no longer a warm body pressed up against his.

Keith was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do y'all see my chapter titles? because they're not showing up on my end :(  
> next chapter should be out sometime next week, loves, if my brain functions properly with me  
> on an absolutely unrelated note, i haven't had peanut butter in literally 5 years, so i've got no idea what it tastes like anymore oops


	3. sticks and stones may break your bones, but snow will melt your skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance goes after Keith, and finds out more about what death gifted him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, I had nightmares after writing this chapter. You'll see why. Anyways, enjoy!

Lance felt the vibrations now—felt them with every fiber of his being. Shaking the ground below him, ricocheting through his nerves and muscles, causing his hands to tremble.

_Keith was gone._

That was the only thought left in Lance’s mind; everything else was empty.

He had to go after him. But Lance didn’t know if he could.

Lance sucked a tight breath in, trying to fight off the sharp sting where his heart should be. He knew this wasn’t what dying felt like, but it should have been. There was nothing else like this desolate feeling inside of him, like half of him had been taken away.

Bracing a hand against the stone, he attempted to stay upright as his legs wobbled, threatening to give out from under him. But as soon as his hand touched the stone, his head snapped back, and his vision went dark.

No, dark wasn’t quite the right word for it. It was closer to a shade of gray—multiple shades of gray. And they were…moving?

Lance swung his head around, and the shades of gray moved with him. He looked over at his hand, more akin to an off-white, and then forward once more.

He blinked, and it was still there. He took his hand off the stone, and the shades of gray were gone, replaced by the pitch black that was beginning to feel familiar.

Hand to the stone—masses made of gray.

Hand off the stone—darkness that he couldn’t see through.

Understanding began to dawn in his mind, just as another powerful vibration set his nerves on edge. It was like being mildly shocked, and Lance grimaced as he waited for the feeling to pass.

He kept his hand on the wall as he took a shaky step forward, and the gray masses moved with him. They were barely recognizable as rock formations, but they were enough. Another vibration rocked him, and Lance turned his head towards it. They were becoming easier to withstand, but it also meant that the creature was getting farther away—and so was Keith.

Lance didn’t want to question how or why this was a thing for him now, even as questions raced through his mind and threatened to set of an anxiety attack. This was all so new and surreal, and Lance was pretty sure he shouldn’t be able to do this, but at this point, he didn’t want to question it. If he questioned it and it went away, he might lose Keith forever.

The creature roared again and Lance picked up his pace. Something sharp and painful poked at his ankle, and he winced as it threatened to give out on him.

He hurried along, keeping one hand on the wall and the other braced out in front of him. He might be able to see the rocks for some reason, but that didn’t mean he would be able to see everything.

Another sound of pain, and Lance was almost running now. His breathing was labored and there was a stitch forming in his side, but he couldn’t stop. He _wouldn’t_ stop.

Lance stumbled, and went sprawling face first. As soon as his hand left the wall, the darkness crowded in once more, and Lance landed on something hard. He was suddenly extremely grateful for his helmet, taking most of the impact.

Groaning, he sat up, placing one hand to his helmet and one to the ground. The gray shapes came back once more, and Lance stifled a scream when he tried to roll his ankle. He was pretty sure there was something broken in it; how the hell was he going to walk on it?

He stood up, another scream echoing in the cave. His blood ran cold, and he took a heavy breath in.

_Time to be heroic._

The vibrations were getting stronger, heavier with every step that the creature took. There was a dark gray opening nearby—the darkest that Lance had seen—and intuition told him that was where he needed to go.

He wobbled his way over, lips pressed tightly together to keep the sounds of pain in. His ankle was definitely broken.

_Thank you_ , he said to whatever gods were left, _for an Altean level of pain tolerance._

It was silent as he moved into the large, open area. It was too quiet for this to be right.

He didn’t want to turn on his helmet light and see the rotten flesh hanging down in front of him. He didn’t want to turn it on and see Keith’s flayed corpse, bloody and raw. He didn’t want to face reality.

But slowly, Lance took his hand off the wall, nearly sobbing with pain as he was forced to put more pressure on his ankle, and reached up. His helmet light clicked on, flickered for twenty seconds, and then blinked out.

He messed with the knob, trying to get it to turn on again, but it was no use.

_Well, fuck._

He put a hand back on the wall, and immediately the shapes came back. He traced the line of his body, seeing it glow that faint off white, and hoped that it would do the same for whatever else was alive down here.

Another shriek sounded, and Lance whipped his head towards it. A broken sob, and then something indistinguishable. There hadn’t been any vibrations in some time, and Lance wondered if the creature somehow managed to walk without bricks for shoes.

_Oh fuck, please don’t let it have gotten smarter_ , he thought miserably.

On cue, a vibration shocked its way through his system, and Lance froze. Another one, and another, and another. It was moving, and it was moving rapidly.

_Oh no oh no oh no._

Lance crouched into a squat, the pain in his ankle forgotten, and braced his back against the wall. Instinctively, he reached for the bayard that should have been at his hip. His hand only met empty air, and he swore quietly.

The vibrations paused, and Lance saw a blob off light grey off to his right. Too light to be rock, too dark to be fully living.

The blob paused, and Lance held his breath, his mind a repetition of one word. _Shit shit shit_. It took one step towards him, and Lance felt the movement in his bones. Another, and then it paused again.

It turned away, going back the way it came, lumbering on four limbs. Lance released the breath he had been holding, standing up gradually. His joints popped and the muscles in his thighs burned as he did so.

Gingerly, he crept towards where the creature had gone, the gray steadily becoming blindingly white. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, and he barely felt the throbbing in his ankle.

Taking his hand off the stone, he squinted against the harsh light filtering through the ceiling. Gaps and holes dotted the cave roof, patches of snow on the ground below the holes. The entire area was bathed in the same white that had begun to haunt his waking nightmares, and if he focused, Lance thought he saw patches of blue high up above.

A muffled sob caught his attention, and he looked away from the roof. Keith hung by his wrists in the center of the cave, bound with some rudimentary cord. His ankles were bound in the same material as well, and though he only dangled a few inches off the ground, Lance didn’t think he was tall enough to cut the other boy down.

_How in the hell—?_

The creature that had caught them had been lumbering and horrific—but there didn’t seem to be an advanced brain lurking in that rotting skull. There was enough, though, that Keith was tied up securely.

Lance didn’t know if Keith was even alive or not; all he could see was the bright red armor that he still wore. His helmet was in place, and judging by the way he twitched, Lance guessed that he most certainly was alive, and that there was still fight in him.

Lance grinned despite himself. Keith was slowly swinging around, lightly moving back and forth like a pendulum, and Lance stayed where he was until Keith was facing him.

He nearly threw up whatever was left in his stomach when he finally saw Keith’s face. Deep, purple bruises lined pale flesh, to the point where there wasn’t an inch of unmarked skin. Keith looked like he had been spun in a dryer with a rock.

Anger boiled up inside Lance, and he took a step forward, only for his ankle to give out on him. He was in a heap on the ground, palms to the rock face and struggling to stand up when the next vibration came. It was light enough that Lance’s hands on the rock disoriented him, the white blurry instead of useful.

It disappeared when he was back on his feet again, and he frowned down. There was so much that he didn’t understand (like why the hell his feet didn’t trigger it) but now wasn’t the time.

Keith was still swinging, having grown quiet, and Lance’s stomach hit the floor when the possibility of Keith being dead entered his mind.

_No._

The creature was on its way back, and Lance ducked behind a nearby rock, mind racing. All he had was a wimpy little pocket knife; Keith’s matches were still stuffed in his pockets. No bayard rested at his hip, and hand-to-hand was next to useless when fighting a creature like this. His death-gifts had run out; no amount of organizational tendencies or gray rock formation vision would help him here.

They had yet to find the lions, and even if he did rescue Keith, they would still be in an underground rock formation with no way out.

Lance felt his anxiety clawing its way up his throat, threatening to suffocate him where he sat.

But he wasn’t going to be useless. Keith needed him. He was still Keith’s right hand man—one-sided love aside.

The creature stomped closer, and Lance’s breath hitched. He had his back to Keith, and he was fighting every instinct that screamed at him to check and make sure Keith was okay. The vibrations made his skin crawl, and Lance clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from rattling.

_He could do this. He could get them out of here alive._

Lance shifted, ankle crying out in pain, until he was on his knees and could look over the rock he hid behind.

Rotten flesh filled his vision, and he lurched backwards. Lance momentarily lost his view over the rock, and felt his pulse pounding in his fingertips as he rocked forwards once more. The creature had its back to him, and was staring upwards at the holes in the ceiling. Hazy light was filtering through, illuminating the fur so that it looked almost…clean. The creature shifted, and then the dark grey spots came back, matted fur hidden in the shadows.

Snow fell from the hole it looked into, and the creature yelped, shuffling backwards so that it landed in a pile on the floor. It bent its head, sniffing, and made a sound akin to disgust. Circling the snow, the creature continued to sniff at it, and Lance felt his own stomach turn. The thing was even worse looking in proper light. But for all that it circled and examined the snow, it made no move to touch it, even going as far as to step away from it as it began to melt on the floor.

_A snow beast afraid of the snow._

It lumbered away, taking care to stay away from walking directly under the holes, walking a perimeter around the spacious cave.

Lance glanced down, looking over at the pile of rocks at his feet, back over to the holes in the ceiling, the beginnings of an idea forming in his mind. _But there was still no way to get Keith down…_

The cave had gone eerily quiet, and Lance was afraid to look over his shoulder at what he might find.

He had twenty-three percent of an idea, and was quickly running out of time.

He stood up, leg aching painfully as he put pressure on it, and clenched his jaw. _I can do this._

The creature turned its head, and Lance swore that it looked directly into his soul.

“Lance,” came a hoarse whisper, but Lance refused to look at Keith, knowing he would lose his nerve if he did.

“Hey, dummy!” Lance shouted, and the creature let out a warning growl. Lance smirked despite the situation telling him not to do exactly that. “Yeah, you, rotten brains. I’m talking to you.”

The creature growled louder, and took a step forward. “Oh come on fuck face, I know you want this hunk of meat,” Lance taunted, willing the creature to step closer. He only had one shot at this.

Rotten flesh swung as it took another step forward, bracing against the knuckles on its forearms. It bared teeth at Lance, and Lance was pretty sure that shade of yellow shouldn’t exist in mouths. Bits of fabric and other unidentifiable pieces clung to sharpened canines, and Lance was pretty sure his nerve just ejected itself out of his body and into the astral plane.

_Oh no._

It took another step forward, and another, and pretty soon, it was charging at Lance. Lance felt his heart flutter and his palms grow damp, his hold on the rock slipping. Soon enough, the thing was close enough that Lance could see droplets of red staining the fur around its mouth, and the lack of an iris in its eye.

Fear invaded every fiber of his being, and Lance took a shuddering step backwards, nearly falling from the force of the vibrations that the creature was causing.

And then he threw the rock.

It sailed through the air, and time stood still. Distantly, he heard his name, but Lance only saw the rock as it hurtled towards the creature, spinning end over end, and finally coming to a stop, smashing into the creature’s forehead.

Lance through another, and then a third. The first rock had barely made a dent, but the second one sent the creature stumbling, and the third one forced it to careen off to the side, losing its footing entirely. The creature screamed as it landed in a pile of snow. It tried to stand back up, and only made it to its forearms before Lance picked up the nearest boulder and dropped it onto its skull.

A stab of guilt echoed in him, but there was no time to examine that now.

There wasn’t any time to stall and see if the creature was going to get back up again. They had a small window of opportunity, and Lance wasn’t going to lose it.

He hobbled his way over to Keith, who had stopped moving entirely. His helmet obscured much of his face, but dark violet eyes still found his.

“Lance.” Lance’s heart hurt when he heard his name said that way, with so much pain in it.

“I’ve got you buddy,” he said, and looked up at the rope securing his wrists. If he got up on his tiptoes, he would be able to reach it, but he didn’t think his ankle would be able to handle it.

_He had to try._

He ground his teeth as he pushed onto his toes, flicking the pocket knife open. The cord wasn’t very thick, and Lance began to saw away at it. Keith’s body was pressed up against his, every hard line melding against Lance.

Lance swore as the knife in his hand trembled, his whole body quaking with exertion. The rope was half gone, and Lance fell back onto his heels, regaining some of his composure. He heard the creature behind them stir, and his energy came back with renewed force.

“Lance,” Keith said again, and Lance met his eyes. Warning was written deep into the lines of his face, and Lance cocked his head at Keith.

There was no time to wonder about whatever Keith was trying to tell him, as the rope began to break. It was fizzling down to just a thread, and Keith swung his body, snapping the last of his restraint.

“Lance, we need to go,” Keith said, voice gravelly and rough.

“Way ahead of you,” Lance said, pocketing the knife. “We still need to find our lions, though.”

Keith gestured with his head towards the way Lance had originally come. “They’re back there. I saw them when the girl was tying me up.”

“Girl?”

A roar echoed around them before Keith could explain, and, like a white person in a bad horror movie, Lance turned around.

The creature was getting back to its feet, pain etched onto its horrid face, screeching. Lance watched in mute horror as the face twisted, and the matted fur grew shorter, and the limbs shrunk. Claws twisted into fingers, and long forearms became soft flesh again.

Keith was tugging at his hand, and Lance broke his stare to face Keith again. “We need to go. _Now._ ”

They were running once more, Keith dragging Lance. Both of them were slow from their own injuries, and Lance had used up the last of his strength trying to get Keith free. He was barely hobbling along, exertion burning his lungs.

The roaring of the creature had been replaced by a human scream, and Lance began to turn his head around when Keith yanked on his arm again.

“You can’t look at her,” he breathed, and Lance nodded. _No looking. He could do that._

The area grew dark once more, to the point where Lance wished he could put his hand back on the wall to guide them. Keith was still leading, though, and given that he knew where the lions were, Lance was more than happy to follow.

Keith fell to a halt, and Lance nearly sobbed in relief when he saw the faint glow from the lion’s eyes. As if they knew that their Paladins were once more there, the eyes became brighter and Red even picked his head up.

Keith let go of his hand, and began to make his way towards Black. The head lion was stirring, but the low ceiling of the cave meant that there was barely any room for them to move.

There was still the issue of getting out of the caves, but it would be much easier now that they had their lions back.

And then an unholy screech sounded behind him, and Lance turned around.

Never before in his life had he felt regret more heavily in that moment than when he locked eyes with the girl at the other end of the cave, to the sound of someone painfully screaming his name.

She smiled at him, and Lance felt the blood leave his face. _Tired. You’re so tired. I think it’s time that you sleep_.

Lance felt himself swaying, and couldn’t figure out why. Was he tired? Yeah, he was tired. He should sleep.

He dropped to his knees, the distant memory of pain long gone as he looked at the girl. She was so welcoming. He just wanted to sleep, right here.

_“LANCE!”_

Lance shook his head. He knew that voice. _Ignore him._

He should ignore that voice.

His eye lids were drifting shut, and he was _so tired_ , all he needed was a short nap and everything would be okay. The girl with the choppy gray hair would take care of him.

Something hit him on the side of the head, and Lance’s vision went momentarily dark, and the spell was broken.

It was like someone had taken a thick comforter off of him; everything felt light and open once more. His eye lids were no longer heavy, and he could think clearly again.

“We need to go!” Keith screamed at him, and Lance staggered to his feet.

Red roared behind him, and Lance thought that it was the best sound he had ever heard. He was up and stumbling, his ankle throbbing, Red the only thing in his vision. If he could make it into the lion, they would be okay.

_They would be okay._

Keith screamed, and Lance’s connection the lion was broken as he once more turned around after Keith had told him not to. The girl had Keith pinned down on his stomach, her hands braced against his arms and her knees on his back.

_“NO!”_

Lance didn’t realize what he was doing before it was too late. He slammed into the girl, tackling her off of Keith, and landing in a heap underneath her. She laughed, loud and wicked, and Lance felt the air leave his lungs.

Keith could make it out of here. Keith could do it. Keith _had_ to make it out of here. He still had a chance at happiness.

The last thing that Lance saw was sharpened teeth snapping in front of him, before he closed his eyes to the world.

He hadn’t wanted to die a dumb death. When he died before, he hadn’t been thinking about what would actually happen.

But here, with death spelled out in front of him, Lance sagged under the weight of it. Allura wasn’t here to save him this time.

Lance’s Mama had always said that he would end up dying for the one he loved most. At the time, it had been said when he got bit by a snake after shoving his sister out of the way. Lance finally knew what she really meant.

_I’m sorry Mama._

The world went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're a pair of self-sacrificing dumbasses, but oh how I love them so.  
> The final chapter is more of an epilogue really, so I should have it out within a day or two of this. Thanks for all of your kind comments! They absolutely make my day and remind me why I keep writing and producing content.


	4. sweet dreams are made of this, who am i to disagree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance hangs on the edge of life and death (a second time), and this time, Allura can't bring him back...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello! This is the final "chapter" even though it technically falls under the category of an epilogue since it's so short. Thank you all so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! 
> 
> also, heads up for the abuse of italics

_“You have to help him!”_

_“Keith! You need to calm down!”_

_“NO! You need to save him.” Someone was crying._

_“We don’t have the pods anymore, Keith. There’s nothing we can do.”_

_Someone else was sobbing now. “Allura, please!”_

_“I don’t know how much I can do, but I’ll try.”_

Lance felt himself drifting, words and silences too loud. He let himself go once more.

~~~

_“Lance, please. I need you to pull through. You can’t do this to me.” The voice sounded angry. Why was the voice angry?_

_“I—I love you.”_

_Lance wanted to laugh. The voice sounded like Keith. But it couldn’t have been Keith. Keith didn’t love Lance like Lance loved Keith._

_“Please,” the voice said, breaking. “I need you to stay alive. For us. We need you, Lance. I need you.”_

_But that was absurd. They didn’t need Lance. He was the seventh wheel. Now, Shiro could take back Black, and Keith could have Red. Things would be right once more._

_“Lance, please wake up.”_

Lance didn’t want to wake up. Exhaustion pulled him under once more, and Lance let it.

~~~

_“Lance! Lance! Come play with us Uncle Lance!”_

_His nieces and nephews stared at him, pleading with the puppy dog eyes they knew would make him do anything._

_Lance huffed, pretending to be mad. “Alright—”_

_Their screams of joy cut off his words, and he laughed along with them. They danced around his feet, wrapping him in some kind of ribbon, and he let them._

_There was nothing quite like family._

_“Lance.”_

_A voice interrupted his memories. “Lance, please come back to us. We need you.”_

_He didn’t want to come back to them. They didn’t need him like his family did._

_“Lance, come back to us.” He couldn’t tell who the voices were anymore. There were too many of them._

_“Lance, you can’t die on us again. I haven’t beaten you at Food Master Extreme yet.”_

_“The team won’t be the same without you.”_

_“We’re almost home.”_

_The voices got quieter and quieter, and Lance’s head hurt more and more._

_“Lance, I love you.”_

His head was pounding, and Lance blinked open his eyes, screwing them shut almost immediately again. Everything was too bright.

“Lance!”

Strong arms enveloped him, crushing the air out of his lungs. He was too stunned to move for a moment, but then hesitantly circled his arms around the mystery person.

Muffled words were spoken into his shoulder. “You’re okay.”

Pain flared everywhere, and Lance grimaced at the sensation. “That might be an overstatement.”

A wet laugh sounded, and the person pulled back. Lance hesitantly opened his eyes, and the blinked rapidly to make sure he was seeing things properly.

Keith stood over him, with glassy violet eyes. He was biting his lower lip, a wobbly smile on his face. “You’re alive,” Keith said gently.

“Wish I wasn’t,” Lance grumbled, and Keith’s face fell. Lance hastily corrected his statement. “Just because everything hurts. I’m happy to be alive, trust me, I just wish I wasn’t in so much pain.”

“You nearly died, Lance.”

A snarky reply wormed its way onto his tongue, but he bit back the words. This felt like a serious moment. “What happened?” he asked instead.

Keith looked away, and Lance swallowed, his throat dry. God, how long had he been out? What the hell had happened? What was that creature thing, and the weird snow, and everything else? Too many questions raced around in his head.

“I was pinned down, and you tackled _her_ off of me. And then she sunk her claws into you.” He spat the words like they tasted vile, still not looking at Lance. “Your pain must have been enough to wake Red all the way up, because he knocked her off of you. Black scooped me up before I could do anything, and, well, I blacked out. I don’t know how we got off the planet, only that we did. When I woke up, we were back in space, and relocating with Shiro and the others.”

Lance coughed, beginning to regret his decision to wake up.

“Allura and Pidge have put together a whole debriefing about exactly what the hell went down, since I’ve still got no idea. But… but they wanted to see if you were going to wake up or not.” Keith met his eyes, wholly unguarded for perhaps the first time in his life.

“Allura didn’t think you were going to survive,” he continued, and Lance focused on a spot on the ceiling. “Your injuries were so severe, Lance. She couldn’t do a damn thing about it either.

“Apparently, you had to choose to wake up. That…thing on the planet did that to you.”

Memories flooded Lance’s mind, and he felt his face heat up. “Wait, all of that was real?”

He felt Keith’s gaze shift to him but now he was the one refusing to look. “Yeah. All of it.”

“What are the odds you remember anything about right before the creature got you?” Lance asked carefully, pulse picking up. _If you have any mercy left, now is the time._

Keith was silent, and Lance chanced a glance over at him. His face had softened, and he was looking right at Lance.

_Fuck me right on over with a dagger_ , Lance thought miserably.

“You told me you loved me,” Keith said, and Lance felt like crying.

“Well, sometimes in stressful situations, we say things because we think we’re going to die and—”

“Lance,” Keith said, cutting him off. Lance met his eyes again. “Did you mean it?”

_Say no, say no, say_ “Yes,” he breathed.

Keith held his gaze for a moment longer. “Well then it’s a damn good thing I love you too.”

And finally, _finally_ , Keith kissed Lance.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do realize that there are a lot of loose threads (what was the planet? Why were only Keith and Lance trapped there? How come Pidge and the others couldn't reach them? What the hell was up with the weird snow?) which is why I have a short oneshot planned after this, in which all of it is explained. And, we get to see Keith's perspective ;) 
> 
> Release date is TBD (mainly cause I don't have it written and school is definitely beginning to kick my ass) so I don't know when it will be out, although I'm aiming for the near future. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading and sticking with it, and I sincerely hope you all enjoyed it :)

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on social media!  
> tumblr: https://blondeslytherin.tumblr.com/  
> instagram: blondeslytherine  
> If you ever have prompt suggestions that you'd like to see, please message me!! I'd be more than happy to consider anything you lovely people send me, and who knows, a whole fic might come from it ;) (also if anyone ever does art for anything please know that I will literally love you forever and ever)


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